The Internet has experienced explosive growth in recent years. The emergence of the World Wide Web has enabled millions of users around the world to download easily web pages containing text, graphics, video, and sound data while at home, work, or from remote locations via wireless devices. These web pages often are large in size and therefore require a long time to download, causing the user delay and frustration. Delay often causes users to abandon the requested web page and move on to another web page, resulting in lost revenue and exposure for many commercial web sites.
Delay downloading a web page can be caused by a number of factors. At the server, a large volume of page requests may overload the capacity of the server and result in unanswered or late-answered requests. Within the computer network, network congestion and limited bandwidth may cause delay in the transmission of data. Particularly problematic is the so-called “last mile” between many home users and their Internet Service Provider. For a majority of Internet users, the last mile is typically a telephone modem connection configured to operate at speeds at or lower than 56K baud. For these users, large web pages take an agonizingly long time to download.
It would be desirable to provide a system and method for accelerating data transmission over a computer network, in order to decrease delay and provide users with a more pleasurable experience.